The “big six” energy companies have come under fire from the regulator Ofgem for increasing their profit margins by almost 40% at a time when people are already struggling to pay their bills.
Ofgem wants to discover whether the energy giants are “playing it straight” with consumers, or whether they are simply “lining their pockets” at the consumer’s expense.
However the findings of the review will not be made available until March next year so Energychoices.co.uk is urging people not to wait that long before looking into changing energy suppliers.
Chris Eagle, is warning people not to sit back and wait to see what happens with the Ofgem review, but to act now if they want to save themselves money.
He says: “Although this is great news that the regulator is investigating the transparency and fairness of the big energy firms, it is not an excuse for you to do nothing and become complacent.
“It is about time the watchdog cottoned onto the fact that energy prices are out of control and people need to know why, however this information will not be available until March 2011.
“In the meantime it is important that you do not just twiddle your thumbs waiting for the verdict, but get online and compare energy prices. You’ll probably find that there are cheaper tariffs available for you and if you were to switch you could significantly slash your gas and electricity bills this winter.”
In addition, Energychoices.co.uk is also recommending that people do what they can to make their homes more energy efficient.
There are a number of things you can do to make your house more energy efficient for little cost, if not for free, which will in turn cut your energy bills.
Here are our top five low-cost ways to cut your bills:
1. Put draft excluders by the doors and hang up some heavy curtains to keep the cold out and the heat in.
2. Make sure the timer is set appropriately on your boiler, so you don’t waste money on heating an empty house.
3. Turn your thermostat down by 1 ̊C, it can cut 10% off your bill and you won’t notice the difference.
4. Use energy saving lightbulbs to cut your bills and they last 10 times longer.
Tags: energy saving, energy saving light bulb, energy saving light bulbs